Welcome! You have accidentally reached the blog of a heteroclite follower of Jesus: dave wainscott. I'm
"pushing toward the unobvious" as I post thinkings/linkings
re: Scripture, church and culture. Hot topics include: temple tantrums, time travel, sexuality/spirituality, U2kklesia, role of the pastor, God-haunted music/art..and subversive videos like these.

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Wednesday, September 24, 2014

U2's thick ecclesiology: aesthetic over institution

"U2: Seeking An Ecclesiology" by Tripp Hudgins for Sojourners-excerpt:

...What I want you to see is this post from
the New Yorker. Do we truly have a "Church of U2" and is it in the
cloud as well as the arenas around the globe? Can they send their sonic
tracts anywhere they want? With 33 million downloads, is this a form of evangelism or is it simply "offering something beautiful?"It
is so wed with making money to support the mammoth (and fading) music
industry, that it's hard to know where the market begins and the
ekklesia ends.

Of course, trying to disentangle those two is always a right mess. Ask Henry VIII. It ain' easy.

The
story of U2 might be this: having begun as a band that was uncertain
about the idea of pursuing a life of faith through music, they have
resolved that uncertainty. Their thin ecclesiology has become thick. Today,
they are their own faith community; they even have a philanthropic arm,
which has improved the lives of millions of people. They know they made
the right choice, and they seem happy. Possibly, their growing comfort
is bad for their art. But how long could they have kept singing the same
song of yearning and doubt? “I waited patiently for the Lord,” Bono
sings, in the band’s version of Psalm 40. “He inclined and heard my
cry.”

Yeah. There
it is. And the connection to the new album? Here: "It expresses a
particular combination of faith and disquiet, exaltation and
desperation, that is too spiritual for rock but too strange for
church—classic U2."

Right. There.

There
is our "authenticity." There is the new ecclesiology that we see
emerging. It is not an institution in the brick and mortar sense. No, it
is an aesthetic. It is "authenticity' that is too spiritual for rock (the pure market) but too strange for church (sorry, Pope Francis).

Dumb disclaimer:

It should go without saying...but i wouldn't want it to... that since this blog is a Spiritaneous place to throw out thoughts/feelings/articles "in process," it does not represent any of the fine institutions you see by my profile that I am affiliated with (Heck, it may not even represent me! (:........). The blog is merely an attempt to subvert subversion and "push toward the unobvious" (Thanks, Tim N. for that phrase) on the six hot topics listed at the top of the page....Welcome, engage it, and don't be offended (for the wrong reason, anyway!)